I am a 17 (almost 18) year old living with my grandparents and my uncle. Recently, both of my grandparents were diagnosed with Alzheimer's and we had to hire in-home nurses to take care of them as their health rapidly declined. For a while, everything was fine, and there were no quarrels with any of the nurses - until recently, this one nurse has started antagonizing me over ordering food delivery. Every time I go to grab my food at the door, she follows me and asks me why I never ask her if my grandpa wants any food. Each time this happens, I tell her that it isn't my job to feed him and she quickly gets to the punchline: "You don't care about your grandfather?"
This has happened almost every single time I've ordered DoorDash while she was on duty. All of her coworkers have never said this kind of thing to me, nor would they need to because they regularly feed my grandpa whereas this particular nurse doesn't seem to bother feeding him dinner and projects the responsibility onto me, even though she is being paid $25/hour for 24 hours (when it is her shift) to feed, bathe, and supervise him. Sometimes, she will enter my room and verbally aggress me to order my grandpa food and will continuously harass me until I do.
My uncle is afraid to report her because he's afraid that she will quit and take all of her coworkers with her, so I can't get any support from him on this matter. So I am taking it here. What should I do? Is this me being petty, or am I right to think that her antagonizing me for her responsibilities is wrong?
EDIT: I believe the correct term for the nurses is actually "aides", sorry about that.
To be clear, there are 2-3 aides employed 24 hours a day to care for both of my grandparents. It isn't just her alone, she is usually with another aide rather than being alone.
She is an employee and needs to know her place. Your Unk needs to have a talk with her and tell her to stop bugging you and focus on her job. She's not going to flounce off in a huff and take her compadres with her -- they need the job. Unk needs to be diplomatic, explain what he expects of her, then if it continues to be a problem, he can decide what to do then.
The uncle, not her, apparently has taken on the financial/medical decisions as to caregiving for the grandparents. He/they are paying for two aides as it is. If he feels doordash is appropriate because the aides won't cook, it's on him to figure out what merchants offer the food that he is comfortable with as opposed to a young person who might be diving into Burger King, or raw sushi, or Carolina ghost peppers.
Its not up to you to order food. That is her job with money your Uncle has provided for this purpose. Ask your Uncle to tell her that ur off limits as is your room. Her job is to care for her client/s not being involved in what you should or should not be doing. If she has a complaint bring it to him and he will deal with you.
For you, ignore her. Don't say anything, ignore her. She is stepping over the line here. She thinks she can intimidate you, don't allow it. Look up "the gray rock method". Maybe a technic u can use on her.
It isn't your job to feed your grandfather, and the aides are being paid to meet his support needs. These things are true.
However. Wouldn't you normally agree that if you live in a household with your family it is quite nice to be asked if you'd like anything when one person is ordering a delivery? - and conversely, wouldn't it be nice to ask if anyone else wants anything when you're putting in an order?
I'm only ever in clients' houses for an hour or two at most, and interactions with family members (especially those not directly involved in caregiving) are therefore brief and limited. I certainly would not take it on myself to correct or even "nudge" the conduct of children and young people, or any other family member for that matter, in a client's family. But there are people, and I have met and mentally disagreed with such before now both at work and in my social life, who cannot see what they consider shortcomings in young people's attitudes without feeling the need to speak out. That's what you've got here. One of them.
I don't agree with her taking you to task, paid or unpaid, whoever's job it is to feed your grandfather.
But maybe it wouldn't hurt you to give what she said a moment's thought.
The adults responsible in your home need to fire these aides and hire a decent a private caregiver who will sit down with you and your family and help design a care plan for both grandma and grandpa. This is how I've worked for years and all my clients were satisfied. I've worked for couples too. It costs more but then it's also twice the work.
I'll tell you truthfully that when I was agency help no client was getting a home-cooked meal from me for two reasons. One because there's no way I was going to cook, clean, do personal care which is absolutely disgusting, and spoon feed for what a care agency pays its aide staff hourly. Two because there usually isn't enough time. Agency employed aides get limited hours with clients so have to budget the time wisely. When meals involve having to spoon feed the elder because they're so out of it with dementia that they can't get food into their own mouth, is a long and very tedious process. Most of the time an aide gets with them is spent doing this if they're feeding them correctly. Getting the client washed up and fed any meal is more important than spending all the alloted time preparing a home-cooked meal that gets hastily shoved in the elder's mouth while they remain dirty and in a loaded diaper because the aide doesn't get the time and has to get to her next job.
I've worked for families who expected the caregiver aide to do what would be the job of a full staff of domestic servants. These families and often the clients themselves were always promptly explained EXACTLY what I'd be doing and not doing.
Your aides aren't going to make home-cooked meals. No agency hired aides are doing this along with all the other work.
So the adults in the house either need to start preparing the meals themselves for your grandparents, or hire someone to cook.
Put a cuphook lock on the inside of your own bedroom door. Cheap and easy to fit.
Talk to you uncle about writing down a list of responsibilities for carers. Do it.
Take the list to all the carers, and ask if anyone has any objections.
Is the difficult carer the boss? If not, and the other carers have agreed the list of responsibilities, report the difficult carer to the company and ask for a replacement for HER, not for the others.
Ask about her relationships with other 17 year olds. You are not her daughter, and you do not follow her daughter’s rules. However you should be polite and be willing to bend a little. There are no prizes for making things worse for everyone.
I also would start looking into leaving once you are of majority. Otherwise you could be the SUBORDINATE to all these aides, having to do their bidding plus that of your grandparents for free.
If she ever approaches you again about ordering meals for yourself and you not spoon feeding your grandparents, tell her that it is not her place to tell you to do anything. And that she had better learn her place and stay in it if she wants to remain employed as your grandparent's caregivers.
You and your uncle do not have to tolerate such behavior from the help. Not at all. If your uncle doesn't call and make a complaint to the agency she works for, you should.
Next time this happens, I'll be sure to say my piece and make sure she understands where she should stand on this issue. I'll also try and get through to my uncle and reassure him that he shouldn't have anything to worry about. If he still isn't convinced then I will call them myself. Thank you for the helpful reply.
You're both wrong; the hired nurse shouldn't be arguing with you over whether or not you care for your grandfather b/c you're not ordering food for him from Door Dash. And you're wrong to not share your Door Dash food with him if this nurse is NOT feeding him dinner.
Your uncle needs to interject his adult presence into this situation and let the nurse know it's her job TO feed grandpa, what to feed him and where this food is located, what his food preferences are, etc.
Get all of this hashed out right away; it's part of HER job duties to feed the man and it's part of your duty as a granddaughter to care that he is being fed.
She is supposed to be feeding them because that is her job that she collects payment for. It is not the job of the teenage grandchild to feed the grandfather. Nor is it the caregiver's job to chastize and instruct the grandchild either.
This caregiver needs to learn her place and stay in it. I'm shocked such behavior is tolerated.
But the caregiver should not be telling you to do things — honestly, since you are minor, she shouldn't really be speaking to you unless it's an emergency.
For now, I would ignore her requests. Be polite, but vague. "I have schoolwork, I can't help." "I didn't know he needed something to eat."
The larger issue is: is your grandfather getting the food that he needs? How is she expected to feed him (like, how do the others feed him?) Those are questions that your uncle can ask the service without specifically antagonizing this caregiver. Just, what's the plan supposed to be? That's a legitimate question.
You are right about it being different if the family asks the teenager to help out with some of the caregiving within reason. Things like keeping them company watching tv or maybe housekeeping. A kid should not be expected to spoon feed an elder so out of it with dementia that they cannot get food into their mouth. That's a bit excessive.
No hired caregiver staff has any right to delegate what is their job onto the family who lives there.
They should not worry about antagonizing this caregiver. They are in the house so she will not try anything with the grandparents. She needs to be put in her place if not by the family them by the agency she works for.